Copper tests eight-week low, no respite from China’s housing slump

Global iron ore and copper prices are extending their decline, with copper slipping to eight-week low on weakness in the latest economic data from China.

China released data on Monday that added to concerns of a weak demand recovery, with both industrial output and fixed-asset investment growing slowly, and demand for housing continuing to stay weak. “The Chinese property sector continues to weaken despite a series of easing policies. People are very pessimistic about the property market,” Wang Yingying, an analyst with Galaxy Futures told Bloomberg on June 17. The fall in real estate investment as well as home prices in China both gathered pace last month, latest data showed.

China’s Shanghai Composite Index ended nearly half a percent lower on Monday.

Copper prices have come off the highs of $11,000 hit last month, as worries over inventories and weakness in China are making investors in the commodity nervous. Also, Codelco – one of the world’s top copper supplier – has clocked its worst month of production in almost 18 years in April, though management has been assuring that output is bottoming out.